


Flowers in the Reek

by Larathia



Category: Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-03
Updated: 2014-01-03
Packaged: 2018-01-07 06:37:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1116663
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Larathia/pseuds/Larathia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>prompt: Author's choice, author's choice, first warm day of the year.</p>
<p>In Midgar, the first warm day of the year...really isn't all that great a day to be out of doors. Until a breath of spring flowers arrives...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Flowers in the Reek

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Juliet316](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Juliet316/gifts).



Midgar wore winter grudgingly, almost hatefully. What would be smooth white blankets on the blasted plains was, very quickly, salt and soot-laden slush on the streets of Midgar, packed into alleyways and piled between streets and sidewalks. Everyone's pets taking a piss added yellow-streaked valleys, and icicles reflected not the white of the lights or the sun but the steel grey of the stone and supports. And the cold lingered forever, it seemed, as anything that might store the sun's warmth was kept far away from its light. In metal shadows raised high above the ground, the ice lingered when flowers were poking above the melting snow on the fields.

And where in other places the first warm day might be greeted with joy, relief, even celebration...in Midgar Reeve tended to view the first warm day with dread.

The first truly warm day in Midgar was when the bodies emerged from the soot-laden snow. Every 'missing person' who'd passed out on the streets on a winter night, every murder victim stuffed into a snowdrift. The warm air brought them to light and half the city reeked of carrion.

They cleaned it up, of course. Sanitation vehicles with their tank treads in the mud and slush, scooping up thawing corpses to determine cause of death and identity, so as to present next of kin with itemized bills. Shin-Ra employees were presented with itemized bills and complimentary fruit baskets.

And people wondered why Reeve took refuge in cartoons and comics and the absurd. _He_ wondered how they lived in such a place and still managed to have sanity and even hope _without_ taking refuge in the absurd.

Reeve took a prototype Cait Sith with him on the first day the weather was supposed to get above forty. The little cat would purr when his biosigns showed indicators of distress, and release odor neutralizers. Automated systems in its eyes took photographs, geotagged by inner electronics, and transmitted to the sanitation crews.

Because that was all one could do, really. Point the crews at another body, and try not to retch or cry, and move on.

He'd tried buying flowers once. But few flowers could be found in Midgar anymore. Certainly not with the snow still melting in the streets. Automated odor neutralizers really didn't carry the same emotional weight.

Reeve was given more than a few odd looks, riding the commuter train with his nose buried in the fur of what looked like a tuxedo cat doll. He didn't really care. The little robot cat purred, and the vibration was relaxing, and the fur was infused with odor killers. It beat smelling the rest of the car by several sports fields, any sports fields.

Then, one year, amid the reek of the thaw, there was a girl selling flowers at the station. Not just _flower_ , singular, but a basket full of tiny blossoms. She was delighted when a tiny robot cat bought one.

Before it could wilt, Reeve had it pressed in glass.


End file.
